L.A. Now Live: Discuss Santa Monica’s earthquake building safety survey

Join Los Angeles Times staff writers Rong-Gong Lin II and Doug Smith for a discussion at 12:30 p.m. Friday on the latest news in Southern California’s effort to prevent damage and the loss of life should there be a major earthquake.

Santa Monica recently announced plans to become the first city in California to inspect concrete, steel and wood-frame buildings and require seismic retrofitting for those deemed vulnerable during a major earthquake.

The move comes after a series of reports by The Times detailing how more than 1,000 old concrete buildings in Los Angeles and hundreds more throughout the county may be at risk of collapsing in a major earthquake. By the most conservative estimate, as many as 50 of these buildings in the city alone would be destroyed, exposing thousands to injury or death.

Santa Monica’s effort comes as Los Angeles officials are considering a similar inventory of concrete and wooden apartment buildings.

During Friday’s chat, feel free to send in all of your questions and comments and we’ll get to as many of them as we can.

You can either send your questions via Twitter to @aribloomekatz or submit them live on the L.A. Times homepage during the chat.